Sounds like Chef is really steamed
Isaac Hayes has quit “South Park” over the animated satire’s take on religion.
“There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs of others begins,” Hayes, who has voiced school cook/ladies’ man Chef in the Comedy Central series since 1997, said Monday
“As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices,” the 63-year-old soul singer and outspoken Scientologist added.
Replied “South Park” co-creator Matt Stone: “This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology. … He has no problem – and he’s cashed plenty of checks – with our show making fun of Christians.
“He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin.”
An episode last November targeted the Church of Scientology and celebrity followers Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
Whose ‘Code’ words?
In a rare public appearance Monday, “The Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown dismissed as “completely fanciful” the claims by two other writers that he had stolen their ideas.
The authors of the 1982 nonfiction book “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” are suing publisher Random House in London’s High Court, claiming copyright infringement. Both books explore theories that Mary Magdalene was Jesus‘ wife, and they had a child.
Brown testified Monday that he did not read their book until the structure of his 2003 theological thriller was in place, though he could not recall the exact sequence of events.
“It’s as if you’ve asked me to go back five years or 10 years and asked me not only what I got for Christmas, but what order I opened the presents,” he said at one point.
You only live … twice?
Sean Connery is recovering from surgery for a kidney tumor at his home in the Bahamas.
The 75-year-old Scottish actor, best known for playing agent 007 in the James Bond movies, told The Sunday Times that he “was opened in five places.”
His brother, Neil, told the newspaper that “as far as I’m led to believe, the tumor was benign. He seems to be quite upbeat about it.”
One of his less meaty roles
Actor Dennis Quaid says he battled “manorexia” when he lost 40 pounds to play a tubercular Doc Holliday in 1994’s “Wyatt Earp.”
“My arms were so skinny that I couldn’t pull myself out of a pool,” he says. “I wasn’t bulimic, but I could understand what people go through with that. I’d look in the mirror and still see a 180-pound guy, even though I was 138 pounds.”
Where she smokes, there’s ire
Lindsay Lohan may have beefed up since her strikingly skinny phase last year, but her mother is still worried about her smoking.
“I told her, ‘You have to stop smoking. You have asthma. You could die,’ ” Dina Lohan says. “I can tell her, but I’m her mother. Did you listen to your mother at 19?”
The birthday bunch
Composer-conductor Quincy Jones is 73. Actor Michael Caine is 73. Actor Steve Kanaly (“Dallas”) is 60. Comedian Billy Crystal is 58. Actor Adrian Zmed is 52. Actor Chris Klein is 27. Musician Taylor Hanson (Hanson) is 23.